


Is this coffee or borsch?

by bonetrinket (neer)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Because Yuuri is acting weird, Don't Judge Me, Duolingo is weird too, Fluff and Crack, Humor, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Slice of Life, Victor is worried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 09:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15726345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neer/pseuds/bonetrinket
Summary: “Is it okay that he just stares at the screen, mumbles something and looks like he’s going to kill someone? Yurio or me, I haven’t decided yet,” he whispers into his phone, and hears Chris let out an exaggerated sigh.“I don’t even know, Victor. You tell me, is it okay that your husband is acting weird, and you’re asking me about it and not him?” he wonders. Victor just groans.





	Is this coffee or borsch?

**Author's Note:**

> I'M DEAD  
> I'M SO DEAD  
> Thank you, [Gia](https://makkarons.tumblr.com), for showing me this weird Duolingo stuff. This fic is for you :D  
> I just... How could I, as a Russian, _not_ write about that?
> 
> Also thank to [@belovedyuuri](https://belovedyuuri.tumblr.com/) for betaing and being wonderful <3 
> 
> All links on actual lines from Duolingo are in the end notes :D You just... you just have to see this.

Victor is _not_ worried.

Victor is not worried at all.

At least he’s trying to convince himself of that as he lays on a couch in the living room, resting after a hard day at work. He is trying — and failing.

“Is this coffee or borsch?” whispers his husband from his seat by the kitchen table. Victor props himself on his elbow and looks across the room at the man. Yuuri’s staring at his phone, nearly piercing it with an intense gaze, and silently moves his lips. There is a plate before him, a full one, with his dinner gone cold. But it’s neither coffee nor borsch (as if it’d be hard to tell the difference anyway); it’s just some mashed potatoes with chicken.

Victor is… confused.

Not worried.

“Is everything alright, Yuura?” he asks carefully.

His husband jerks. He looks at Victor — with his ears adorably red and a blush high on his cheekbones — and shakes his head, then nods, then just looks away and chews at his lip for a second.

“Everything is great,” he says, but after several minutes, when Victor is lying again, listening tentatively to Yuuri’s murmurings and chuckles, he whispers with genuine interests, “I fail to understand why there is juice on the plate.”

* * *

 It’s all started several days ago, if Victor recalls correctly.

He was in their bed, bundled between soft, warm blankets, slowly dozing off with Yuuri’s gentle fingers combing through his hair. It was nice — it was always nice to have Yuuri so close, to feel his body heat, to nuzzle into his thigh when he was just sitting on the bed and smiling at his phone.

It felt like home.

And it was when Victor was already half-asleep, when his head was cloudy and his eyelids heavy — he felt his husband lean closer, touch Victor’s hair with his soft lips, and heard him mumble, with a subtle wonder in his voice:

“Do you think about your soul?”

* * *

 It’s not like Victor thought that Yuuri was creepy — but he was, apparently. The day after that memorable night, he wasn’t sure if he really _had_ heard what he thought he heard, so he just asked Yuuri about it when the man was brushing his teeth, but he shrugged and said that it wasn’t something Victor should worry about.

And Victor didn’t — for a day, at least.

But then at practice he stumbled upon Yurio, all flushed and teary and apparently suffocating.

“Your fucking pig is gonna be the death of me,” he croaked, wiping away his tears, and that was all he said to him before disappearing into the locker room.

And when he found Yuuri on the ice, skating back and forth with concentration written deep in the shadows on his face, Victor didn’t ask any questions, because he — of course — wasn’t worried at all.

* * *

Okay, maybe he was.

Maybe he _is_ worried — just a bit, because Yuuri is his husband, and it seems like he’s either losing his mind or hiding something, and Victor doesn’t even know what’s worse.

“Is it okay that he just stares at the screen, mumbles something and looks like he’s going to kill someone? Yurio or me, I haven’t decided yet,” he whispers into his phone, and hears Chris let out an exaggerated sigh.

“I don’t even know, Victor. You tell me, is it okay that your husband is acting weird, and you’re asking me about it and not him?” he wonders. Victor just groans.

The door to the bedroom is ajar, and he can see Yuuri sitting on the bed with his laptop on his lap. He’s swaying a bit, his brow is scrunched in concentration, and he’s whispering something — something… not in English.

Victor leans closer to the door, and in the next moment Yuuri says it, in loud, broken Russian:

“ _Yes, I have good blood!_ ”

* * *

 He just can’t live like this anymore.

He tried to ask Yurio about Yuuri’s behavior, tried to ask Mila, Georgi, or even Yakov — but they just smiled and waved him off without a word.

He even tried to ask Yuuri — and instead of an answer, he got a panicked look and a shaken “I swear, everything is fine!”

But he can’t live like this.

So, a week after the first incident, he comes home late after practice with Yakov, determined to finally talk to Yuuri properly, and hears it again.

His husband’s talking to someone, and he is talking in Russian again. Victor can’t hear it from the hallway, so he tiptoes through the dark, chilly living room to the bedroom and glances inside around the corner.

The room is dark, too; Yuuri’s sitting on the floor near the bed, his face lit with the dim light of his phone. It’s not like he is having a conversation, because no one is answering. But he is _saying_ things.

“ _The end is near_ ”, he says in Russian, and then smiles brightly and taps at the screen. “ _Life is suffering. Life is_ **_suffering_ ** .” He frowns again, just like before, and then clears his throat. Victor can’t feel his own heartbeat at this point; he stands still. “ _Suffering is his destiny…_ a-and _Why is there blood here?_ ” And he smiles again.

Victor slams the door open.

It all happens in a flash — Yuuri squeaks and drops his phone on the floor, scrambles to his feet; Victor’s by his side immediately, holding him firmly as Yuuri tries to break free.

“What are you doing?!” Yuuri finally exclaims, and Victor hugs him closer.

“What are _you_ doing, Yuuri?! Whose blood? What are you talking about? Why in Russian?! Is it some kind of a sect, Yuuri, because if it is, I can help you, just please don’t—”

And then, Yuuri starts laughing.

He is laughing so hard, so beautifully free and loud that Victor lets go off him and just stares for a moment with wide eyes.

Yuuri flops on the bed and looks at Victor with shimmering, watery eyes.

“Really?” he asks. “And _this_ is what you think of? That I’m in a sect?” He giggles again, and Victor… Victor _thinks_ that he might be missing something.

He picks up Yuuri’s phone and stares at the white-and-green screen with gray “Почему здесь кровь?” written on it. And with a big green button saying “CHECK” below it.

“Oh fuck,” he says, as Yuuri, apparently, is crying from laughter at this point.

He’s crying — just like Yurio cried several days ago. Victor presses the check button, and the next phrase is, _Is your cat in school or where?_ In Russian. Of course it’s in Russian.

Victor can see Yuuri going with this to Yurio — for practice or just for fun. He can fucking _see_ the reaction. Can see it. No, actually, he saw it.

“I’m such a dumbass,” he mumbles, and Yuuri laughs harder and stretches his arms towards Victor, asking for a hug.

“You are,” Yuuri hiccups, closing his arms around Victor’s back. His chest rumbles with laughter, which is subsiding now.

“But why haven’t you said anything? I’ve been asking you all this time!” Victor mumbles in Yuuri’s shoulder.

Yuuri exhales slowly, but still chuckles a bit.

“I wanted to surprise you,” he says, honest. And then adds, “And it’s kind of embarrassing. All this— stuff you accidentally heard. It was… so weird.”

It wasn’t just weird. It was _super_ weird.

“Well, at least you can start a cult now, with all that _The end is near_ and _Life is suffering_ stuff,” he says, and Yuuri laughs again, kissing Victor’s crown and nuzzling into his hair.

“Actually, this isn’t the only thing I know,” he whispers, sliding his fingers over Victor’s spine playfully. The man shivers slightly.

“What else…?”

“Раздевайся,” Yuuri says with a smirk, and when Victor looks up, unable to believe what he just heard, Yuuri just gives him an innocent smile. “What? It’s not me who created Duolingo. Ask them,” he says, and Victor grins.

“I’ll probably send them flowers,” he says and falls down on Yuuri, causing an excited yelp to escape his husband’s lips.

* * *

 “It can’t be that weird, can it?” Victor asks later that night, toying with the app on his phone. Yuuri, with his hair wild and lips delightfully red, just shrugs.

“Try it.”

Victor chooses the Japanese course and stares at the first sentence that appears on the screen.

“He says he drinks to forget,” he reads aloud, and Yuuri just pats him knowingly on the head.

**Author's Note:**

> Раздевайся - Take off your clothes
> 
> \--
> 
> All screenshots are from [@wtfduolingo](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com) (CHECK IT OUT)
> 
> [Is this coffee or borsch? - Это кофе или борщ?](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/167028723145/gotta-love-the-russian-course-on-duolingo-image)  
> [I fail to understand why there is juice on the plate? - Я не понимаю, почему сок в тарелке?](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/174016891518/image-transcription-a-russian-phrase-says-i)  
> [Do you think about your soul? - Вы думаете о своей душе?](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/162436715866/duolingo-is-getting-deep-all-of-a-sudden-image)  
> [Yes, I have good blood! - Да, у меня хорошая кровь!](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/161666415610/uh-ok-image-transcription-russian-phrase-saying)  
> [The end is near. - Конец скоро.](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/162625438471/apocalypticism-made-it-onto-duolingo-image)  
> [Life is suffering. - Жизнь - страдание.](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/170843445397/image-transcription-a-russian-phrase-says-life)  
> [Suffering is his destiny. - Страдание - его судьба.](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/169203218040/image-transcription-%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE-%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B4%D1%8C%D0%B1%D0%B0)  
> [Why is there blood here? - Почему здесь кровь?](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/175916555111/image-transcription-a-russian-phrase-says-why)  
> [Take off your clothes! - Раздевайся!](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/149264517945/all-you-really-need-to-know-when-in-russia-image)  
> [He says he drinks to forget. - 彼は忘れるために飲むと言います](https://wtfduolingo.tumblr.com/post/146351067966/image-transcription-%E5%BD%BC%E3%81%AF%E5%BF%98%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B%E3%81%9F%E3%82%81%E3%81%AB%E9%A3%B2%E3%82%80%E3%81%A8%E8%A8%80%E3%81%84%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99-which)
> 
> What's... what's wrong with you, Duo?..
> 
> you can always reblog this work or just say hi on tumblr: [@bonetrinket](https://bonetrinket.tumblr.com/post/177143222776/is-this-coffee-or-borsch-bonetrinket-neer)


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